Pissaladière Niçoise

Appetizers & Snacks, Dinner, Snack

Pissaladière is a caramelised onion and anchovy tart hailing from Nice. With its golden dough, sweet slow-cooked onions, savoury anchovies, and briny black olives, this rustic yet elegant dish captures the flavours of the French Riviera.

Pin Recipe Print Recipe

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 10 minutes mins

Servings 6

Cook ModeTurn this on to keep your screen awake while cooking

Ingredients  

1x2x3x?

For the dough

• 250 gr plain flour
• 6 gr baker's yeast
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 150 ml water lukewarm

For the topping

• 1,5 kg onion white or yellow
• 2 cloves garlic
• 14 anchovy fillets salted in oil
• 25 black olives
• 1/2 tsp Herbes de Provence
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 sprigs thyme
• black pepper freshly ground

Equipment

• 1 mixing bowl
• 1 baking tray
• 1 frying pan
• 1 wooden spoon
• 1 knife
• 1 rolling pin
• 1 pastry brush
• 1 tea towel

Instructions

1. 1. Prepare the dough

   Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and let it rest for 5-10 minutes until it becomes bubbly and foamy. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt, then add the activated yeast mixture and olive oil. Mix with your hands or a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms, then knead on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes until the dough is silky and elastic. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover it, and leave it to prove in a warm spot for about 1 hour or until it has doubled in size. This slow rise will develop a soft, pliant dough that springs back when poked, providing the perfect base for your pissaladière.

   Short on time? Honestly, just grab a good-quality ready-made bread or even pizza dough. The kitchen police won’t come knocking.
2. 2. Caramelise the onions

   While the dough rises, heat the olive oil over low heat in a large frying pan. Add your sliced onions, whole garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, bay leaf, and Herbes de Provence. Season with pepper but go easy on the salt as the anchovies will bring plenty later. Cook very gently for at least 1 hour 30 minutes, stirring now and then. The onions should collapse into a soft, golden tangle, rich and creamy with just a hint of bite left. If in doubt, lower the heat and let the aromatics do their slow magic. Remove the garlic, thyme and bay when done.
3. 3. Shape and prove the dough

   Once the dough has risen, knock it back and roll it into a rectangle about 30x40cm. Lay on a greased baking tray or parchment. Leave it to rest, covered with a damp tea towel, for 20 minutes while you get your toppings ready. This extra pause gives your crust that lovely, slightly pillowy feel.
4. 4. Assemble

   Spread the caramelised onions evenly over the dough right up to the edges. Lay the anchovy fillets in a traditional lattice or diamond pattern over the onions, and set an olive in each diamond shape of anchovy. If you’re feeling whimsical, go as artistic as you like, but tradition is simple and geometric.The anchovies’ salty tang plays perfectly off the sweet onions.
5. 5. Bake

   Bake in a preheated oven at 210°C (fan 190°C) for about 20 minutes, until the edges of the tart are golden and crisp. If you can, let it cool to just above room temperature before slicing. It’s a tart made for sharing, ideally with friends, sunshine, and a carafe of something pink and cold.

Notes

• If you find anchovy fillets too intense, you can rinse and dry them, or use fewer. Some locals swear by a dot of anchovy paste spread thinly over the dough before the onions go on, for deeper umami. Pissaladière keeps well, and is delicious at room temperature, an excellent make-ahead for picnics or parties.
• Pissaladière keeps beautifully, and is often eaten cold, a blessing if you’re prepping ahead for a summer gathering or a lazy British bank holiday.

About this recipe

Pissaladière is the pride of Nice, a tart reportedly as old as the port itself. The name “pissaladière” comes from the Niçard word “pissalat”, translating to “salted fish”, specifically a deeply savoury paste made from young anchovies and sardines mashed with herbs and left to ferment. This concoction dates back as far as Roman times, with some historians tracing pissaladière’s lineage to Genoese recipes or adaptations made in Nice as early as the 15th century. Originally, it was a thrifty port-district staple, fuelling both fishermen and the port workers with its rich, sustaining flavours.

As Mediterranean culinary borders ebbed and flowed, the pissaladière not only soaked up influences from Liguria (Italy), but also became one of the icons of Nice, sharing the regional table with salad Niçoise, fougasse, and pan bagnat.

The best pissaladière is all about time and patience. The sheer mountain of onions melts down during a long, slow simmer with olive oil, herbs, until they’re meltingly soft and endearingly sweet. This isn’t a slapdash weeknight recipe, it’s French slow food at its finest.

While the original version saw pissalat brushed directly onto the dough before baking, most modern recipes use anchovy fillets or even anchovy paste, thanks to the near-extinction of local pissalat production due to overfishing and regulations. Purists might sniff, but anchovy fillets are now the rule, laid in neat diagonals with an olive at every intersection for that essential, unapologetically Mediterranean grid.

Pichade
In Menton, the neighbouring city on the Italian border, you’ll find the “pichade,” a tomato-topped cousin, and occasionally a “tarte de Menton”, pissaladière but without anchovy for those wary of fish.

Pissaladière distils everything glorious about the French Riviera into a single tray. It’s unfussy but luxurious, robust and full of character, and frankly, nothing pairs with a bottle of Provence rosé quite like this slice of Southern France.